Yama: the pit eBook

In the fifth or sixth class many of Kolya’s
comrades had already tasted of the tree of knowledge
of evil. At that time it was considered in their
corpus an especial, boastful masculine chic to call
all secret things by their own names. Arkasha
Shkar contracted a disease, not dangerous, but still
venereal; and he became for three whole months the
object of worship of all the seniors—­at
that time there were no squads yet. And many of
them visited brothels; and, really, about their sprees
they spoke far more handsomely and broadly than the
hussars of the time of Denis Davidov.[Footnote:
A Russian ban vivant, wit and poet (1781-1839), the
overwhelming majority of whose lyrics deals with military
exploits and debauches.—­Trans.] These debauches
were esteemed by them the last word in valour and
maturity.

And so it happened once, that they did not exactly
persuade Gladishev to go to Anna Markovna, but rather
he himself had begged to go, so weakly had he resisted
temptation. This evening he always recalled with
horror, with aversion; and dimly, just like some heavy
dream. With difficulty he recalled, how in the
cab, to get up courage, he had drunk rum, revoltingly
smelling of real bedbugs; how qualmish this beastly
drink made him feel; how he had walked into the big
hall, where the lights of the lustres and the candelabra
on the walls were turning round in fiery wheels; where
the women moved as fantastic pink, blue, violet splotches,
and the whiteness of their necks, bosoms and arms
flashed with a blinding, spicy, victorious splendour.
Some one of the comrades whispered something in the
ear of one of these fantastic figures. She ran
up to Kolya and said:

The phrase was said in a kindly manner; but this phrase
the walls of Anna Markovna’s establishment had
already heard several thousand times. Further,
that took place which it was so difficult and painful
to recall, that in the middle of his recollections
Kolya grew tired, and with an effort of the will turned
back the imagination to something else. He only
remembered dimly the revolving and spreading circles
from the light of the lamp; persistent kisses; disconcerting
contacts—­then a sudden sharp pain, from
which one wanted both to die in enjoyment and to cry
out in terror; and then with wonder he saw his pale
shaking hands, which could not, somehow, button his
clothes.

Of course, all men have experienced this primordial
tristia post coitus; but this great moral pain, very
serious in its significance and depth, passes very
rapidly, remaining, however, with the majority for
a long time—­sometimes for all life—­in
the form of wearisomeness and awkwardness after certain
moments. In a short while Kolya became accustomed
to it; grew bolder, became familiarized with woman,
and rejoiced very much over the fact that when he
came into the establishment, all the girls, and Verka
before all, would call out: